Department of Psychology and Human Development, UCL Institute of Education, London WC1H 0AA, UK.
Faculty of Education, University of Cambridge, Cambridge CB2 8PQ, UK.
Int J Environ Res Public Health. 2021 Jan 29;18(3):1221. doi: 10.3390/ijerph18031221.
Adolescents with Developmental Language Disorder (DLD) are at risk for increased feelings of anxiety and depression compared to their typically developing (TD) peers. However, the underlying pathways involved in this relationship are unclear. In this initial study of the 'social mediation hypothesis', we examine social functioning as a mediator of emotional problems in a cross-sectional sample of adolescents with DLD and age- and sex-matched controls. Preliminary data from twenty-six participants with DLD and 27 participants with typical language development (TLD, 11-17 years) were compared on self- and parent-reported measures of social functioning and emotional outcomes. There was little evidence of group differences in self-reported social functioning and emotional outcomes, but parent-report of SDQ Peer Problems and Emotional Problems in the DLD group was significantly higher than in the TLD group. Parent-reported peer problems mediated parent-reported emotional problems, accounting for 69% of the relationship between DLD status and emotional problems. Parents of adolescents with DLD, but not adolescents themselves, report significantly higher peer and emotional problems compared to TLD peers. The hypotheses generated from these novel data suggest further investigation into adolescents' perceptions of socioemotional difficulties and friendships should be examined.
与典型发育（TD）同龄人相比，发育性语言障碍（DLD）青少年更有可能感到焦虑和抑郁。然而，这种关系中涉及的潜在途径尚不清楚。在这项“社会中介假说”的初步研究中，我们研究了社会功能在 DLD 青少年和年龄及性别匹配的对照组的横断面样本中作为情绪问题的中介。对 26 名 DLD 患者和 27 名具有典型语言发育（TLD）的患者（11-17 岁）的初步数据进行了比较，这些患者分别进行了自我报告和父母报告的社会功能和情绪结果的评估。自我报告的社会功能和情绪结果方面，两组之间几乎没有证据表明存在差异，但 DLD 组的父母报告的 SDQ 同伴问题和情绪问题明显高于 TLD 组。父母报告的同伴问题中介了父母报告的情绪问题，占 DLD 状态和情绪问题之间关系的 69%。与 TLD 同龄人相比，DLD 青少年的父母而非青少年本身报告了更高的同伴和情绪问题。从这些新数据中产生的假设表明，应该进一步研究青少年对社会情感困难和友谊的看法。
